THE BIOMEDICAL ADVICE ADVICE THE BIOMEDICAL 38 SCIENTIST Hong Kong flu Hong Kong flu SCIENTIST 39

The Hong Kong flu outbreak of 1968-70 claimed over one million lives worldwide. Retired protective equipment and I didn’t worry GP Elizabeth because I was in my twenties and I knew Clyde reflects on that most people in that age group would get over it. I got the flu a few weeks after her first-hand treating patients and recovered quickly.” experiences Upon arriving at the patient’s home, Elizabeth would assess the general from this widely condition of the patient before checking forgotten pandemic. for Hong Kong flu. “I’d enquire about cough and sputum, examine the chest and when you listened, a lot of them had very early chest symptoms.” In severe cases, the virus would weaken the lungs enough to allow opportunistic secondary bacterial infections to take hold – frequently pneumonia, leading to hospitalisation and, in some cases, death. HONG KONG FLU “A lot of people got over it without Research. “But as with now, no one knew any treatment. If there was the slightest REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN PANDEMIC for certain how deadly it would turn out doubt they were getting a chest infection, to be. Regardless, people went on with I would prescribe a course of broad- their lives”. spectrum antibiotics to the very elderly, n July 1968, a new strain of the There was no formal lockdown and no Nathaniel Moir added: “There were diabetics, smokers, and those who would influenza virus was identified in the social distancing measures, as we see few precautions taken during the H3N2 be shielded these days were prescribed then British colony of Hong Kong. HONG KONG FLU FACTS today. The advice from one Hong Kong pandemic other than washing hands and prophylactic oral antibiotics even though Referred to by some as the “Mao Flu”, Symptoms included: chills, fever, official was to “stay at home and take staying home when sick.” their chest was clear,” says Elizabeth. due to a suspicion the virus muscular aches, fatigue, cough, sore aspirin, tea, lemon drinks, whisky or “There were no antiviral drugs at that originated in mainland China, Hong throat, runny nose, headache and brandy, according to taste”. Highly contagious time and the flu vaccine was in its Kong flu rapidly spread across the vomiting and diarrhoea for some. In the UK, the medical council alerted the Due to advances in technology and infancy. The hospitals were absolutely globe, with more than 30,000 deaths Symptoms would last public to the threat, saying it was likely to healthcare, the virus was quickly full of patients who started with flu and in the UK, half of which were people aged approximately 4-6 days, though “spread through the country like wildfire”. identified by virologists as the H3N2 developed pneumonia. Ambulances had Iunder 65. The disease was considered to could persist for two weeks. The daughter of Phillip Snashall, a strain of the influenza A virus, thought to check which hospitals had free beds.” be mild compared to other flu outbreaks, The first peak occurred in the winter retired professor of medicine had the to have jumped to humans from pigs. The concept of self-isolation and social such as the Spanish Flu, which is school holidays and a vaccine was first case of Hong Kong Flu in Europe. However, it descended from the earlier who fell ill to a flu-like illness while distancing wasn’t as well developed or estimated to have killed around 50 developed early, but not widely He told the British Medical Journal: “How H2N2 Asian flu strain. orbiting the moon on board Apollo 8. universally enforced as with the current million worldwide. With several major available until later. things change. The stock market did not Hong Kong Flu was highly contagious pandemic. Asked about the social historical events occurring at a similar The pandemic occurred in two major plummet, we were not besieged by the and spread fast – first across Southeast On the frontline distancing and lockdown measures time – including the Moon landings, waves – winter 1968-69 and 1969-70. press, men in breathing apparatus did Asia, then the world, including Australia, Elizabeth Clyde, 77, is a retired GP who was in place at the time, Elizabeth said: Vietnam war and Stonewall riots – Hong The second wave of Hong not invade my daughter’s playgroup.” Africa, Europe and South America, working as a trainee doctor in her early “Although I did say to people who had flu Kong flu is often overlooked and dubbed Kong Flu in Europe Society had experienced the Spanish reaching the US via troops returning to twenties in Edinburgh during the Hong and other members of their family to stay by historians “the forgotten pandemic”. and Asia had far and Asian flu, the Second World War and California from Vietnam in October 1968. Kong flu pandemic. “A few weeks after the in until their risk of infection was over, higher mortality. diseases such as tuberculosis and The Wall Street Journal reported that corpses start of my GP training in an Edinburgh there were no general instructions to A lack of measure This was not the measles were commonplace. There was were being stored in Berlin underground practice there was a recurrence of flu,” she people to stay at home.” Nathaniel Moir, a postdoctoral fellow at case for the US. also less pressure for governments to tunnels and binmen were recruited to bury says. “We were very busy visiting ill As Hong Kong Flu began to subside, Harvard University, said in the New York H3N2 still act in a world without social media, bodies due to undertaker shortages across patients and I, being the youngest and Elizabeth was immediately faced with a Post: “It was like the pandemic hadn’t even circulates today, 24/7 news and the internet. West Germany. The virus is also reported to fittest, was allocated visits in tenements.” new major threat: “As the flu gradually happened if you look for it in history books. among the usual “That generation approached have infected prominent individuals On her rounds, Elizabeth would enter died out, I remember there was a measles seasonal winter I am still shocked at how differently people viruses with calm, rationality and including US president Lyndon B. Johnson, several patients’ flats every day and was epidemic after that and I was quite busy flu strains. addressed – or maybe even ignored – it in intelligence”, said Jeffrey Tucker, from who said it was the worst he had felt in his not provided with any type of personal with that, as there was no immunisation

1968 compared to 2020.” the American Institute for Economic IMAGES: ALAMY/GETTY/©DR. FRED MURPHY-CDC life and NASA astronaut, Frank Borman – protective equipment. “We had no against measles in those days”.